Using notepad++ software to easily format xml, HTML code

If you work as a developer in an IT company, you might be using an IDE like Eclipse or Netbeans to write your code. Best IDE’s offer several tools for programmers. They make the code look nice by automatically indenting or formatting it.

Beginners in Colleges, Universities are forced to used a text editor to write their code as it is probably the best way to learn a programming language. Professors recommend students to use an advanced editor like Notepad++ on Windows or Vi, Emacs or Linux.

Notepad++ is a free software to edit all types of code files. When you install it on your PC, you can easily edit code files with .c, .cpp, .java extensions. Formatting codes in earlier versions of Notepad++ was frustrating and time-consuming. Latest edition of notepad++ has been integrated with a formatting utility. If for some reasons, you don’t want to use a newer version of this editor, please follow the below tutorial to indent your XML, HTML codes.

Open Notepad++ plugin manager from the plugins menu. Now you’ll see a window displaying 50+ useful plugins and install, close, settings button. If you don’t see this list, disable antivirus application on your Mac, Windows PC for few minutes as it is blocking internet access to Notepad++. Just like Google Chrome extensions, you can extend the features of Notepad++ editor via plugins.

As we want to format XML code, we’ll install XML tools plugin. Scroll down the list to find the plugin. Once you select XML tools, click on install button. Notepad++ will now automatically download the required files from internet and it will save them to the plugin folder. Once the downloading task is complete, you will be prompted to restart the application. Now restart Notepad++ and open any file stored on your PC. Click on the pretty XML option from Plugins –> XML tools. This will format and indent your XML or HTML code on the fly.